Tarzan® the famous
jungle man created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is one of the most widely known
characters in modern fiction, having appeared in books, movies and on television.
A legendary hero, Tarzan enjoys the distinction of starring in the first
adventure comic strip, the first continuity strip, and the first strip
to appeal to generation after generation for more than seven decades.

The Lord of the Jungle made his
first appearance in a daily comic strip in 1929. In 1930 United Feature
Syndicate (UFS) took over the syndication of Tarzan and launched the first
Sunday comic in 1931. UFS continues to syndicate Tarzan as newly-created
Sunday comics and classic dailies.

Harold Rudolph Foster was born
in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on August 16, 1892. Many of his English-Prussian
ancestors had been seafarers from whom Hal inherited a love of the sea,
the outdoors, and adventure. His father died when he was four and in 1906
his financially-strapped stepfather moved the family to Winnipeg, Manitoba.
Here he excelled in many sports: boxing, lacrosse, hockey, rugby, football,
and baseball. Harold was largely self-educated as the failing family fortunes
forced him to leave school in grade nine. He developed a passion for art
and helped support the family and pay for art school by hunting and fishing.
His first art job was doing illustrations for the Hudson Bay Company mail
order catalogue.

During this time he married Helen Wells in
1915. Later, when he could not find enough work as an artist to support
a wife and two small children, he moved north to work as a wilderness guide
and prospector in the Canadian Shield area of Manitoba and Ontario.

Hal and family returned to Winnipeg where
he resumed his art career but, in 1921, decided to scout out the more lucrative
market in Chicago. To cut costs he left Helen and the kids in Winnipeg
and made the thousand-mile trip by bicycle. Within hours after his arrival
in the windy city he was robbed and had to wire back home for emergency
funds. During the '20s he found work with major advertising firms and magazines
while studying part-time in some of Chicago's top art schools.

In 1927, Burroughs associate, Joseph H.
Neebe, commissioned Foster to do an illustrated adaptation of Tarzan of
the Apes. The result was 60 daily strips, each consisting of five captioned
panels. Despite the high quality of this series, it was a bit of a hard
sell. Eventually, however, it debuted on January 7, 1929 in about a dozen
US and Canadian newspapers -- including the Halifax Chronicle. These strips
were published in hardcover book format by Grosset and Dunlap in August
of 1929.

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Reader response to the strips was overwhelming
and distribution was taken over by United Features Syndicate. But, since
Foster had returned to the advertising field, Metropolitan artist Rex Maxon
was hired to take over the strip and in March 15, 1931, produced the debut
Tarzan colour Sunday page as well. Burroughs was very unhappy with the
quality of Maxon's work and eventually Foster was lured back to take over
the Sunday series starting with the September 27, 1931 page. After an uninspired
start, Foster soon adapted to this relatively new art form and his work
became more inspired. In fact, his art improved so dramatically that the
pages he created through the '30s are some of the best in the history of
comics. In 1937 he moved on to create his own strip, Prince Valiant
which he lovingly crafted until 1970. The art techniques and scripting
skills he perfected in the Tarzan series served him well in this much-loved,
critically acclaimed strip. Hal Foster died on July 25, 1982.

THE HAL FOSTER YEARSSeptember 27, 1931 to May 2,
1937CONTENTS(Work in Progress)